Ridley Scott to direct third Alien prequel

Sir Ridley Scott is returning to the 'Alien' franchise to helm a third prequel.

The 81-year-old director launched the blockbuster sci-fi horror franchise with the first 'Alien' movie in 1979, and to mark the 40th anniversary of the film Scott has revealed he is currently writing a script for another backstory project.

The filmmaker has admitted he jumped at the chance to work on the new prequel.

He told Variety: "They sent me a script and I read it. I loved it.

"I was in Hollywood within 32 hours."

More information is yet to be revealed at this time.

Although the first movie made $104 million at the box office worldwide and was the six highest-grossing movie of that year, Scott left the franchise, with the 1986 sequel being helmed by James Cameron, the third, released in 1992, by David Fincher and Jean -Pierre Jeunet stepped up to the role for 1997's 'Alien Resurrection'.

Sigourney Weaver played heroine Ellen Ripley in the original flick and three subsequent sequels and was also co-producer for 'Alien 3'.

In 2003, Scott returned to head up an alternate version of the 1979 original which was shorter as he felt the original was too long.

He went on to helm the two direct prequels; 2012's 'Prometheus' and 2017's 'Alien: Covenant'.

Meanwhile, Scott and Weaver recently praised students at North Bergen High School in New Jersey for putting on 'Alien: The Play'.

The teenagers created a social media storm when clips from their stage production of the acclaimed film were posted onto Twitter by the play's director, English teacher Perfecto Cuervo, with the videos quickly going viral.

The astonishing effort was noticed by Scott who sent a letter to the drama department commending everybody's efforts.

Scott wrote: "My hat comes off to all of you for all your creativity, imagination and determination to produce such an ambitious show. Thanks for doing Alien, I felt very complimented."

Weaver also saw the footage of the play and posted a video on the official 'Alien' Twitter account in which she congratulated all the students on their achievement and passed on a message of praise from James Cameron, who directed the first sequel 'Aliens'.

In the video, the 69-year-old actress said: "I saw a bit of your production of 'Alien'. I just want to say it looked incredible. You put so much heart and soul into that and the alien, I must say, looked very real to me.

"I just want to send our compliments, not only from me, but from James Cameron and the original screenwriter, Walter Hill. We all say bravo, well done. And just one more thing - you know, the alien might still be around. So when you're opening your locker, just do it very slowly."

The school's play stayed close to the plot of the original movie which tells the story of the crew on the commercial starship Nostromo who, after answering a distress call, unwittingly bring a dangerous extra-terrestrial lifeform on board.

They then must find a way to survive as the deadly Xenomorph begins hunting them one-by-one.